Fri day, April 3, 1964 — THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS -- 2
Purely Commentary
Auto-da-Fe and Inquisition: Hidden Facts
America, the national Catholic weekly review published by
a group of Jesuit Fathers of the United States and Canada, in
a very recent issue, carried an article by Fr. John J. Oldfield, an
American \Nilo spent several years recently as a student in Spain
who is a member of the order of Augustinian Recollects. Under
the title "Christians and Jews in Spain," purportedly tells how
"representatives of both faiths discuss their mutual problems and
solutions."
The latter portion of the heading correctly indicates that
the article reports on the discussions that were conducted by the
representatives of both faiths in their efforts to establish good
relations. But the background as recorded by the visiting Augus-
tinian student renders a serious injustice by its omissions.
Fr. Oldfield commences his thesis by indicating that "Judaism
is no stranger" in Spain, that "the names of Solomon Ibn Gabirol
and Moses Maimonides are among the most glorious in Jewish
intellectual history" in that country which "had seen a great
flourishing of Jewish thought and letters during the period of
the Arab dominations." But there follows in his article this set
of ideas which compel the registry of a protest:
"Spain was a land preferred by the Jews until their ex-
pulsion by the Catholic rulers Ferdinand and Isabella on
charges of endangering the unity of the newly formed
Spanish nation.
"So hopeful were the Sephardic Jews of returning, it is
said, that they took the keys to their homes with them. These
Jews - 200,000 of them - were scattered widely, but nuclei
of Spanish-speaking Jews remained in the Balkan peninsula
until World War II, when most of them found their way to
Palestine.
"That expulsion in 1492 was the beginning of a long
and bitter hostility between Spain and Judaism. Even today,
it is not uncommon in Spain to hear references to a 'Jewish-
Marxist-Masonic' conspiracy against the country's Catholic
traditions, while, in most Jewish sectors throughout the
world, Spain is certainly not an object of affection. For the
Jews were embittered and bewildered by their forced exodus."
Is this all there was: a forced exodus? Was it an endangering
of Spain's unity or was it the imposition by Torquemada, with
the aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, of inquisitional tactics, which
resulted in tortures and murders and the introduction of the
auto-da-fe? - the pyres on which they burned the Jews!
The "Jewish-Marxist-Masonic" charges are of a later day.
The period to which Fr. Oldfield referred was one during which
Jews not only were loyal to Spain but had held important official
posts there. Their fate was sealed by the Church through the
Inquisition, and for any one to speak of the Spanish-Jewish
tragedy without mentioning the Inquisition, which was one of the
most dastardly creations, is nothing other than distortion of
historical truths.
It is true that the present Spanish government is not anti-
Semitic. During World War I, Dr. Max Nordau and others found
refuge there from unjustified charges that were leveled at them
in France of pro - Germanism, due to their German background.
-
Refugees from Nazism were able to trek through Spain during
the Nazi persecutions on their way to safety from the Hitlerite
persecutions.
Yet today, in that land where some Jews are attempting to
reconstruct a Jewish community that was destroyed by religious
persecutions, the small group of 3,500 Jews again has to contend
with the charges that "international Jewry" is threatening Spain.
Warrior-poets, as Fr. Oldfield reports, "have not been free of
anti-Semitism" and there are current "such slogans as 'cursed
race' and 'God-murdering people.' "
What's the use of speaking of an end to the charge of deicide
by the Vatican Ecumenical Council when there are repititions of
such medieval charges?
Since their expulsion from Spain, Jews - indeed, even the
Maranos about the Spanish language and Spanish culture. Jews
for centuries spoke a Spanish dialect - Ladino - and while
this language had declined and the last of the Diaspora Ladino
newspapers went out of existence a year ago; in Istanbul, there
still are 220,000 Ladino-speaking Jews in Israel and numbers more
in other lands.
Yet, a handful of Spanish Jews - 3,500 of them! - have
been engaged, as Fr. Oldfield reports, in negotiations to establish
better relations with Catholics and thereby to assure security for
themselves. Fr. Oldfield states in his article:
"Educating the Spanish masses in their conception of
the Jew is as difficult as focusing world attention on the
actual situation of Spain's Jews. The Spaniard does not hate
this Jew or that Jew. Generally, he has never met a Jew;
he knows only the suspect figure presented to him by legend,
old history texts, polemical and medieval poetry, and his
own language.
"There is no fear of the Jew in Spain, because he does
not proselytize. Nevertheless there remains a vague popular
image of this one-time ally of the Muslims as one who was
expelled from Spain to save the faith and who ever since
has kept on conspiring against her. No history professor
would uphold this theory; it belongs to that vast realm of
oversimplified popular notions which reduces all historical
situations to duels between Light and Darkness . . . "
Is this all it is: an oversimplified popular notion? If it is a
legend of hatred inspired by "old history texts," why aren't they
changed? If it is an image of the Muslims' ally, why aren't
the Spaniards informed that Jews, who were allies of the Muslims,
emerged loyal Spanish patriots?
It is because the truth is hidden from the Spaniards that the
canards about them are perpetuated. It is because the aim of
Ferdinand, Isabella and Torquemada to acquire the wealth
of the Jews of Spain of that time is being hushed up. If the libels
and the bigotries and the medieval legends are to be wiped out,
that people must be told what really caused the expulsion of the
Jews: the Church-created inquisition and the autos-dale!
When the truth is told, there will be more than a beginning
for the formation of good relations between Catholics and Jews
in Spain: there will be an atonement for a great crime. By his
failure to state these truths Fr. Oldfield, who surely intended
to add good words in support of the attempted good-will move-
ment in Spain, has contributed towards the perpetuation of the
ignorance relating to the inquisitional period-one of the most
Colorful Holiday
Throngs Drawn
to Mount Zion
Factual Data Exposing By Philip
USSR Anti-Semitism ..
Inquisition Facts
SIOMOVitZ
Jewry's Status in USSR: Compelling Fact Sheet
In behalf of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet
Jewry, which is to convene in Washington April 5-6, U.S. Sena-
tor Jacob K. Javits has released a fact sheet about the depriva-
tions imposed upon our kinsmen that staggers the imagination.
In summary of the facts enumerated in the compilation of
data about Russian Jewry, it is stated:
"The history of the past several years has shown that
the rulers of the Soviet Union are not impervious to criticism
of their treatment of Soviet Jewry. For this reason, world
Jewry will not cease in the effort to end the government cam-
paign to pulverize and ultimately to eliminate Jewish conscious-
ness among Soviet Jews and to keep them isolated from their
fellow Jews in other parts of the world. Despite the hardships
they face and the discrimination they suffer, the Jews of the
USSR profoundly desire to maintain their Jewish spirit and
to perpetuate their Jewish identity."
Because the Soviet Union, not unlike any other nation whose
tactics are challenged, is sensitive to criticism, it is important
that the facts presented in the conference statement should be
TEL AVIV - JTA - The
traditional Passover pilgrimage
to Mount Zion in Jerusalem took
, place Tuesday in a festive at-
mosphere, with some atomic
age overtones.
Almost 20,000 pilgrims with
choirs, music bands and groups
clad in colorful traditional cos-
tumes mounted the hundreds of
stairs to the Tomb of David to
look over the Jordan-held Old
City in excellent weather.
A special train with hundreds
of Tel Aviv residents was wel-
comed at the Jerusalem station
by singing groups led by Rabbi
S. Z. Cahana of the Ministry
made known as widely as possible. The fact sheet offers the for Religious Affairs. Among
those awaiting the train was
following data:
a Boukharian Jew, Binjamin
BACKGROUND
1. The last Soviet census, in 1959, listed 2,268,000 Jews. Reliable reports Saidov, who was riding a don-
indicate, however, that those census returns entirely omitted statistics on
Jews in some areas and deflated the the actual number in others. The key "to carry the Messiah in
correct figure is nearer to 3.000,000-perhaps more-making Soviet Jewry case he is among the arrivals
second only to the Jews of the U.S. in population.
2. Although Soviet Jews constitute but 1.09 per cent of the population, on the train."
they rank eleventh numerically amono - the more than 100 Soviet nationali-
The untra-modern note was
ties. There is no republic of the U.S.S.R.
b
where Jewish communities are
not found. The great majority live in the three most populous republics: struck, by a group representing
38 per cent in the Russian Republic, 37 per cent in the Ukraine, 7 per a committee of "One Hundred
cent in Bielorussia.
3. Jews in the U.S.S.R. are officially recognized as a nationality group. Simple Men" who distributed
In the personal identification papers which all Soviet citizens carry, Jews leaflets against war and against
must list their nationality as "Jewish" (Yevrei) just as other nationalities
-Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Georgians, Armenians, Lithuanians, etc.- nuclear weapons. The group
must list theirs.
tried to cross into Jordan to
4. The Jews are also regarded, secondarily, as a religious group, such
distribute such leaflets, but
as the Russian Orthodox, Baptists, Moslems and others.
DEPRIVATION OF CULTURAL RIGHTS
was stopped by police. A spe-
1. In the 1959 census, 472,000 Soviet Jews listed Yiddish as their
"Mother tongue." This courageous demonstration of loyalty to Yiddish cial pilgrimage was made by a
culture served notice on the government that Soviet Jewry still hoped group of nine Israelis marching
for a revival of Jewish cultural life.
2. Although Soviet practice recognizes the inherent right of every under a banner "Easter March
nationality to maintain and perpetuate its own cultural identity, the Jews For Peace."
are the only nationality who do not enjoy the basic cultural rights ac-
Some 20,000 holiday-makers
corded to all other minorities.
3. Hebrew was forbidden soon after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 passed Beersheba on the way
but Jews were permitted a flourishing cultural life in Yiddish until 1948:
this in
' eluded the publishing of newspapers, books and literary journals; south to Eilat, Israel's southern-
rsoefaersesional
atheanteres
tw
literary and cultural most port city, and Sodom.
research institutes, and a network of schools.
4. In 1948 this whole array of institutions was dismantled and hun- !Many tourists also went to
dreds of Jewish writers, artists and intellectuals were imprisoned. Many Eilat to participate in the
perished in concentration camps; the twenty-four most distinguished and
"Song of the Sea Ceremonies"
talented of them were executed in 1952.
5. A few positive steps toward easing the harsh suppression of Jewish 1Tuesday. A special boat took
cultural and religious life have been made since Stalin's death-whether I pilgrims out for
C
as a result of the general easing of conditions under Khrushchev or strong
criticism of the Soviet regime by Jewish and non-Jewish groups. In 1959 monies will be held in other
and 1961 a total of six Yiddish books were published, in editions of 30,000 parts of Israel today to con-
Bach-albeit the writers were long since dead. None has been published
since. In 1961, for the first time since 1948, a bi-monthly Yiddish literary elude the Passover observance.
fournal-Sovietish Heimland-began publications in an edition of 25,000.
Related Stories on Pages
in 1963 a Hebrew-Russian dictionary was published and early in 1964
1 and 32.
;here appeared, in Russian, a book of poems by modern Hebrew poets.
6. This is all that remains of the rich Jewish cultural life that existed
matil 1948. Today Jews are forbidden schools of their own, forbidden
:lasses in Yiddish or Hebrew in the general schools, and forbidden classes
in the Russian language on Jewish history and culture.
DEPRIVATION OF RELIGIOUS RIGHTS
1. Judaism is subjected to special discrimination, and religious Jews
are subjected to special disabilities which do not affect any other major
religious denomination in the U.S.S.R.
2. Jewish congregations are not permitted to maintain national federa-
tions or other central organiations through which religious functions
are governed, religious needs serviced, religious beliefs bolstered and
communication between congregations strengthened.
3. Judaism is permitted no publication facilities and no publications.
No Hebrew Bible has been published for Jews since 1917, nor has a Rus-
sian translation of the Hebrew Bible been allowed. In 1957, for the first
time since the early 1920s, a Hebrew prayer-book was photo-offset in an
edition of 5,000-copies. There is an extreme shortage of prayer-books and
religious calendars.
4. The decades-old ban on Hebrew prevents Jewish children from
understanding or participating in the prayers of their religion.
5. The production of such indispensable religious objects as the talks
(prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) is prohibited.
6. Synagogues have been forcibly closed down in many areas, fre-
quently to the accompaniment of virulent press campaigns against them.
As a result, Jews have taken to gathering in each others' homes for
prayers. Yet in many places such private prayer meetings (minyanim)
have been banned, dispersed or otherwise harassed.
7. Circumcision is officially discouraged and mocked, even though
there seems to be no law against it.
8. The yeshiva (rabbinical seminary) established in Moscow in 1957
has never been permitted to enroll more than fourteen students. It has
ordained only two rabbis, neither of whom has functioned as a synagogue
leader. In April 1962, nine of its thirteen students were prohibited to
reside in Moscow. Two years later there remain only four students, al-
though applications for admission have been made by prospective students
from all over the country.
9. In 1962, a total ban was imposed on the public baking of matzoth
for Passover and renewed in 1963.
10. An atmosphere of intimidation and fear pervades the few remain-
ing synagogues in the Soviet Union, the result of arrest and imprisonment
on trumped-up charges of espionage leveled against synagogue officials in
Moscow and Leningrad, and the infiltration of synagogues by police
informers.
THE ANTI-JEWISH PRESS CAMPAIGN
1. The government policy of cultural and religious repression of Soviet
Jewry is conducted within the charged atmosphere of a virulent press
campaign. In books, newspapers and magazines, Jews are represented in
traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes-as unscrupulous, cunning, malevolent,
vicious and conspiring.
2. Judaism as a religion is vilified. Rabbis and synagogue officials are
portrayed as swindlers, money grubbers, alcoholics, criminals. Jews are
ridiculed for observing religious holidays.
3. The Soviet Union has a continuing campaign of anti-religious propa-
ganda. Yet only Judaism-of all the religions in the U.S.S.R.-has been
singled out as a focus of disloyalty to the state.
OTHER FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION
1. Jews are subject to a subtle policy of discrimination in employment,
education and major sectors of public life.
2. A few especially brilliant Jews can still be found in high positions-
and sonic in the middle rank-in professional, cultural and economic life.
But Jews have virtually disappeared from key "security-sensitive" areas
such as the armed forces, diplomatic corps and membership in the Su-
preme Soviets (legislatures) of the 15 republics.
3. The proportion of Jews in higher education, science and the profes-
sions has been declining for many years. In many universities and ad-
vanced institutes, a numerous clausus prevails. A generation ago (1935)
Jews comprised 13.5 per cent of all students in higher education. Today
the figure is 3.1 per cent.
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST ECONOMIC CRIMES
1. Official hostility against Jews has been revealed in the massive cam-
paign waged in the last few years against so-called "economic offenses"
such as embezzlement of state property, currency speculation and bribery.
Fifty to 60 per cent of all those sentenced to death for such offenses
have been Jews. In some areas (the Ukraine, for example) the figure is
80 to 90 per cent.
2. In a number of cases, the Jewish religious affiliation of the culprits
was explicitly pointed out. In Lvov, the city's last remaining synagogue
was closed down on the ground that it served as a spawning ground for
economic crimes against the state.
3. Jews are depicted as people "whose only God is gold," who are
"slaves of gold" and who cunningly manipulate naive non-Jewish officials
a.nd workers for their own mercenary ends. They are portrayed as the
initiators and master-minds of criminal plots.
4. The result of this campaign is both to exacerbate endemic anti-
Semitism and to create an atmosphere of fright and intimidation among
the Soviet Jewry.
Mizrachi Drops
Membership in
Jewish Congress
NEW YORK, (JTA) - The
Religious Zionist Organization
of America, Mizrachi - Hapoel
Hamizrachi, has adopted a reso-
lution severing its affiliation
!with the American Jewish Con-
gress and has notified the Con-
' gress of its action, Rabbi Israel
Tabak, acting president of the
religious Zionist group, an-
nounced.
Rabbi Tabak said the action
was an outgrowth of a com-
munication sent by seven major
American non-Orthodox organi-
zations to Israel's Premier Levi
Eshkol, urging him not to per-
mit "coercion in Israel by re-
ligious extremists." The Amer-
ican Jewish Congress was one
of the seven.
Dr. Tabak asserted that aside
from the "coercion" charge,
"which Mizrachi considers false
and malicious," the signing by
the American Jewish Congress
"without prior consultation of a
document dealing with so cru-
cial a religious matter, is an
act of bad faith?'
REUNION OF FAMILIES
1. Tens of thousands of Soviet Jews
wish to be reunited with their broken
families in Israel and elsewhere -
families that were shattered by the
Nazi holocaust.
2. The Soviet government has re-
fused, to all but a handful of Jews,
the elementary human right to leave
their country in order to be reunited
with their families - even though
the U.S.S.R. has in principle accepted
the ligitimacy of this right.
Any comment on this reveal.
ing statement would be superflu-
ous. The existence of anti-
Semitism in Russia is an estab-
lished fact. The inheritance from
Czarism predominates in the So-
viet Union. That is why a united
American Jewish community is
being forced to speak out, in
protest against bigotry and the
suppression of human rights, at
the sessions to be held in Wash-
ington next week.